Is this the best deal around? A little confused with it all!

[WileECoyote]

Hi everyone

I've just joined and I'm really hoping to learn all about Usenet!

I've had an account with Newshosting for a couple of years and have just used their browser to grab what I need but I find the search functions quite awkward, a lot of the stuff that comes up is German and it's very difficult to pin down exactly what you are looking for.

My subscription is up for renewal and I saw from their offers that they pair a subscription with an Easynews account for the apparently enhanced search, but it's $190 which seems very expensive compared to what I was on before. Sure enough when I checked I am paying $99 a year for unlimited speed/data and 2000+ days retention and the good news is that subscription will roll over this year, that seems to be about the best deal I can find.

So...if I stick with that deal, what's the best way of finding the content I'm after and not just downloading some random rubbish or password protected file?


Also, I've seen comments in here about partnering with a European service as well to fill in the gaps. How would I set them both working side by side to fill in gaps that Newshosting couldn't download?



Finally (promise!), is it worth looking at third party search software such as Newsleecher? That does seem quite expensive on it's own though...$48 a year!


Sorry for all the questions on my first post, I hope someone can help out.


Thanks very much. :)

[vigor5000]

If I was you I would not renew with Newshosting as there are cheaper alternatives like Astraweb for $15/2months,Frugal for $5/month(low retention though).For searching you could use free indexers from the list here http://filesharingtalk.com/threads/396406-NZB-Indexing-sites.The answer to all your questions are here and you just need to search and read the threads.You would want to use another new reader client like SABNnzbd or Newsbin to make use of more then one usenet provider which can be set as backups.

[WileECoyote]

Hi

Thank you for your reply and my apologies for taking a while to follow up on this thread!

That link looks really useful I'll have a good read!

I'll look into Newsbin et al, thanks for that as well.

In the end I decided to stay with Newshosting, I did look around at the ones you've suggested plus others but there did seem to be limits in one way or another. I suppose it's part of staying with what you know as well, I've always been able to max out my connection with Newshosting and the support tickets have been answered promptly, I guess they'll have me for another year!